Desdemona Chiang News

Single tickets to Studio Theatre's 2019-2020 Season are available to the public beginning todaya?"Tuesday, July 23, 2019.

Village Theatre has announced the lineup for The 19th Annual Festival of New Musicals, a series of five staged readings of musicals currently in development. The Festival will take place in Issaquah August 9-11, 2019. Village Theatre's Festival of New Musicals is the birthplace of Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning shows such as Next to Normal and Million Dollar Quartet, as well as Broadway and Off-Broadway hits: It Shoulda Been You, Desperate Measures, Lizzie, and many more.

Studio Theatre rounds out its 2019-2020 season with the announcement of its Studio X productions-characteristically edgier, immersive offerings which include cult-favorite monologist Daniel Kitson with his latest project, Keep., and the Studio-commissioned world premiere of Abe Koogler's Aspen Ideas. Created with the support of Studio R&D, the theatre's incubator for new plays, Aspen Ideas probes the nature of ideas conceived by the wealthy and elite to solve the world's ills. Kitson famously made his DC debut at Studio Theatre in 2017, his first time outside of New York and a rare US engagement. He returns with a meditation on accumulation, material possessions, and the value we assign to them.

To close out its 55th season, Orange County's Tony Award-winning South Coast Repertory is mounting David Henry Hwang's intriguing and mysterious play M. BUTTERFLY, using the playwright's much more layered and riveting 2017 Broadway revival as its source material. Marked assuredly by powerful, gripping performances, this admirable OC staging---directed with clarifying precision by Desdemona Chiang that continues through June 8 in Costa Mesa---keeps you at the edge of your seat, as it unpacks a story filled with wobbly uncertainties and vague declarations. A beautifully complex production that echoes sentiments of gender conformity/fluidity crossed with geopolitical issues that still resonate in today's ever-changing world, M. BUTTERFLY---particularly with this strong new update instituted by the original playwright himself---is definitely worth seeing.

Theater Latte Da (TLD) announces the slate of artists and projects for this summer's NEXT FESTIVAL. Three dynamic new works from Isabella Dawis and Tidtaya Sinutoke, Dylan Thomas, Cerys Matthews and Mason Neely , David Simpatico and Michael Holland will each receive workshops and public presentations beginning Saturday, July 6.

Play On Shakespeare today announces an expansive list of compelling actors and dynamic directors confirmed to participate in the Play on! Festival, presented in association with Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF). Play on! features 39 readings of new, work-in-progress translations of Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English by some of today's most exciting playwrights-May 29-June 30 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th Street). In 2015, Oregon Shakespeare Festival launched an ambitious 39-play, three-year commissioning project, Play on!, tasking 36 playwrights-more than half of whom were women and playwrights of color, each paired with a dramaturg-to translate Shakespeare's canon in celebration of the enduring impact of the Bard's work. Supported by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation and inspired by long-time patron Dave Hitz's passion for Shakespeare, the project was and continues to be led by Lue Morgan Douthit. For more information, visit playonfestival.org.

Stage Directors and Choreographers Society (SDC), the theatrical Union that represents over 4,000 professional stage directors and choreographers will host an all-day summit for its Members and their guests, on Monday, May 6. The day, which begins at 1:00 PM, is designed to facilitate a space for directors and choreographers to engage in conversation with their colleagues around their craft, to raise the profile of Northwest directors and choreographers, and to encourage increased community through SDC. 

David Henry Hwang's M. Butterfly, a tale of obsession, perception and the allure of fantasy, will conclude South Coast Repertory's 2018-19 season. Hwang's break-out hit-a Tony Award-winner and Pulitzer Prize finalist-is about more than steamy seduction and fantasy; inspired by a true account, it's a compelling story of espionage, East-West relations and betrayal. Desdemona Chiang, in her SCR debut, directs the show on the Segerstrom Stage, May 11-June 8. Tickets are available online at www.scr.org.

Play On Shakespeare in association with Classic Stage Company (CSC) and Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) presents the Play on! festival-featuring 39 readings of new, work-in-progress translations of Shakespeare's plays into contemporary modern English by some of today's most exciting playwrights-May 29-June 30 at the Lynn F. Angelson Theater at CSC (136 E. 13th Street).In 2015, Oregon Shakespeare Festival launched an ambitious 39-play, three-year commissioning project, Play on!, tasking 36 playwrights-more than half of whom were women and playwrights of color, each paired with a dramaturg-to translate Shakespeare's canon in celebration of the enduring impact of the Bard's work. Supported by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation and inspired by long-time patron Dave Hitz's passion for Shakespeare, the project was and continues to be led by Lue Morgan Douthit. For more information, visit playonfestival.org.

Characters at the crossroads of love, power, war, or forgiveness populate Seattle Shakespeare Company's upcoming season just announced by Artistic Director George Mount. Plans for the company's 2019-2020 season include The Tempest, The Rivals, Troilus and Cressida, and Macbeth. "Each of these plays in their own way has a moment when it comes down to a singular choice," said Mount. "The course of the action is set by that defining decision out of which things will never be the same."

PlayGround concludes the 25th season of its celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series with a special evening of environmental-inspired plays as part of the 5th annual PLANET EARTH ARTS NEW PLAY FESTIVAL on Monday, April 1, 8 PM at Berkeley Repertory Theatre. The topic for the April 1 program (rescheduled from the previously announced March 18 date) is "BORDERS, ISLANDS & WALLS". Members of the 2018-19 PlayGround Writers Company have just five days to generate their original ten-minute plays inspired by the topic. The top six scripts will each receive an hour-and-a-half rehearsal and a professional script-in-hand staged reading at Berkeley Rep on April 1.

CAUGHT presented by Intiman Theatre will catch you off guard and make swiss cheese of all your theories of what is art and what is theater. Christopher Chen's play combines visual art and theater into a playground of ideas. What is truth, your perception, and intention are all challenged with thought-provoking dialogue and action. Just when you think you have grasped the essence of the piece, it shifts direction and reveals a twist, another level, and leaves you once again wondering what is real.

Lauren Yee is a talented playwright, with an ear for fast dialogue and a knack for creating pithy lines that work on several levels. This skill is clear in the title of her cross-cultural play now on the big proscenium stage at the Guthrie, and also pops up periodically through the two-act show. While the piece traverses some promising thematic terrain, it is too choppy and a little too predictable to work fully.

PlayGround continues its 25th season of its celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series with the first 2019 Monday readings on Monday, January 21, 8 PM at Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Roda Theatre. The topic for January's round, announced last Friday, is "ADAPT A FAIRY TALE". Members of the 2018-19 PlayGround Writers Company have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-minute plays inspired by the topic. The top six scripts will each receive an hour-and-a-half rehearsal and a professional script-in-hand staged reading at Berkeley Rep on January 21. PlayGround writers in Los Angeles are working simultaneously on the same prompt and their finalists will be presented at Hollywood's Broadwater Mainstage (home of Sacred Fools Theatre Company) on January 14. Tickets are $15-$30 and 3-admission flex subscriptions are just $60 ($45 for 25-and-Unders). For tickets or more information, visit http://playground-sf.org/monday.

Talented cast knows how to some some laughs.

PlayGround continues its 25th season of its celebrated Monday Night PlayGround staged reading series on Monday, November 26, 8 PM at Berkeley Repertory Theatre's Roda Theatre. The topic for November's round, announced this morning, is "FALL DOWN, GET UP". Members of the 2018-19 PlayGround Writers Company have just four-and-a-half days to generate their original ten-minute plays inspired by the topic. The top six scripts will each receive an hour-and-a-half rehearsal and a professional script-in-hand staged reading at Berkeley Rep on November 26. PlayGround writers in Los Angeles are working simultaneously on the same prompt and their finalists will be presented at Hollywood's Broadwater Mainstage (home of Sacred Fools Theatre Company) on November 12.  Tickets are $15-$30 and 5-admission series subscriptions are just $75 ($50 for 25-and-Unders). For tickets or more information, visit http://playground-sf.org/monday.

Baltimore Center Stage has announced the cast and artistic team for its second play of the 2018/19 season, King of the Yees. Written by award-winning playwright Lauren Yee, King of the Yees is the hilarious and heartfelt generational story of a Chinese-American family.

There are plenty of ways of describing Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Sophisticated, approachable, elegant, witty. But very few would describe it as wacky... unless those lucky few had seen Kate Hamill's production, as directed by Desdemona Chiang at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. I can't remember the last time I had quite as much fun at a 'classical' period piece, even while realizing that this was certain to be one of the most divisive shows in PPT history. Throughout the evening I heard audiences laughing, clapping, even cheering the production's gleeful ingenuity, while at intermission I heard several people complain that 'it's a wonderful production of a stupid play' and that they 'thought it would be more Masterpiece Theatre.'

"A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears see how yond justice rails upon yon simple thief. Hark, in thine ear change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief." - William Shakespeare

Pittsburgh Public Theater begins its 44th season with a new management team - Artistic Director Marya Sea Kaminski and Managing Director Lou Castelli - and the Pittsburgh premiere of Kate Hamill's innovative comedy, Pride and Prejudice. Directed by Desdemona Chiang, Pride and Prejudice runs September 27 - October 28, 2018 at the O'Reilly Theater, Pittsburgh Public Theater's home in the heart of Downtown's Cultural District.